FEATURE: Josh Boutwell reviews 8/22 Impact Wrestling

I’m going to start off talking about the AJ Styles rumors this week. Out of all the negativity that has surrounded TNA the last couple of weeks, this is the most troubling thing to me. There is nothing in TNA that stands for the early days of TNA more than AJ Styles. He has been there since day one and has been one of the shining stars of the company. If TNA allows him to leave it will be the biggest mistake they’ve made in quite awhile in my opinion. Not just simply because I like AJ, and he is one of my favorite guys to watch to be sure, but he is also one of the most popular guys in the company and can work with literally anybody. Brooke Hogan leaving is great but if AJ leaves, it will be a gigantically stupid mistake.

The opening promo with Roode and Bad Influence was excellent. Just great stuff there especially with Roode. I liked Aries and his reasoning for refusing and playing mind games with the group as well. Storm sticking his nose in things with his history with both Roode and Bad Influence was good, but the tag team match was a little random. The match itself was fun though.

Manik and Sonjay had a good match and now that they’ve abandoned the 3-Way gimmick they can at least do some legit feuds and give us a reason to want someone to win or lose in an X-Division match. The 3-Way gimmick was interesting to me to start but it wore out its welcome pretty quickly. It’s time to bring in some fresh blood in the division too.

Gail and ODB put on a good match and Gail’s shoulder breaker was sick, and I loved the way she really picked apart that arm. Gail has been really cerebral lately with the way she picks a body part and just works it over old school style. She went after the arm early and often and it ended up costing ODB the match.

The Street Fight was okay but it was just all over the place and felt flat at times. Bradley was sloppy and really the only big spot was Hernandez’s crazy dive. The finish with Aries getting involved was pretty fun though.

Bully’s revelation of Brooke Tessmacher was weird but it will be cool to see her work heel and thank God we don’t have to worry about Brooke Hogan getting involved anymore. Good riddance.

The Main Event had some really good action but the story of the match was obviously AJ Styles reverting back to his old “Phenomenal” ways. It’s just a bit odd and if they’re just going to abandon the loner gimmick like that it’s about a year of storytelling, and a great story at that in my mind, right down the drain. I truly hope they give us some reasoning behind this rather than just changing their minds. I have to say, though, the reaction AJ got when his old music hit and he took off the hoodie was pretty cool. The fans definitely were into it. Rampage really never did much until close to the end when he got to do a few strikes and a slam.